Why does Jesse Robbins invest in infrastructure?

Jesse Robbins invests in infrastructure because operations is a competitive advantage. His portfolio includes Tailscale, Netlify, and Gradle. His thesis traces directly from his work at Amazon.

Jesse Robbins on Infrastructure Investment: Tailscale, Netlify & More

Operations is a competitive advantage and occasionally a strategic weapon. I wrote that in 2007. I have been investing on that thesis ever since.

The ability to consistently create and deploy reliable software to an unreliable platform that scales horizontally. That is what separates companies that ship from companies that stall. I learned this at Amazon, where operational excellence was the foundation everything else was built on. I learned it again at Chef, where we turned infrastructure into code so every team could operate at that level.

Tailscale makes secure networking simple enough that any developer can set it up. Netlify made deploying web applications a one-step process. Gradle makes build infrastructure fast and reliable at scale. Each of these companies took something that was painful and manual and made it disappear. That is the pattern I invest in.

Infrastructure is not glamorous. Every wave of software innovation, cloud, mobile, AI, creates a new infrastructure layer underneath it. The companies that build that layer well become essential. I look for founders who understand that the developer using the tool is the customer, and that developer experience is the product.

Why I invest in infrastructure

Further reading